Household savings rate: lessons from banking data

This study examines the contribution of banking data to measuring the household savings rate, based on transactions from a very large sample of customers within a banking network between 2021 and 2024. Thanks to their high level of granularity and frequency, these data offer unprecedented insights for monitoring economic conditions and analysing savings behaviour. The study proposes an operational definition of the savings rate based on the difference between income and consumption as a proportion of income. However, the imperfect identification of certain banking transactions leads to a significant underestimation of the savings rate, estimated at 6 % in 2022 compared with 17 % in the national accounts. Despite this discrepancy in levels, the trends observed are consistent with those in the national accounts. The results also highlight significant heterogeneity in saving behaviour according to age and income. Finally, the longitudinal nature of the data confirms the role of saving as an adjustment mechanism in response to fluctuations in income.